Spatially Resolved Synthetic Spectra from 2D Simulations of Stainless Steel Wire Array Implosions

A 2D radiation MHD model has been developed to investigate stainless steel wire array implosion experiments on the Z and refurbished Z machines. This model incorporates within the Mach2 MHD code a self-consistent calculation of the non-LTE kinetics and ray trace based radiation transport. Such a method is necessary in order to account for opacity effects in conjunction with ionization kinetics of K-shell emitting plasmas. Here the model is used to investigate multi-dimensional effects of stainless steel wire implosions. In particular, we are developing techniques to produce non-LTE, axially and/or radially resolved synthetic spectra based upon snapshots of our 2D simulations. Comparisons between experimental spectra and these synthetic spectra will allow us to better determine the state of the experimental pinches.